our little blessing

Our son Teak Joseph Head was born on October 28th, 2010. He has been a blessing in our lives even before he was born. We truly feel honored that the Lord chose both of us to be the parents of this special boy. Teak was born with Spina Bifida Myelomeningocele and a minor hearing loss in both ears. Both un-related to each other. These are the curve balls of life. You never know when they are coming, you just keep your head up, step up and hit back with prayer, strength and love.Welcome to our lives. Teak will one day change the world for the better just the way he has changed us.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Wow, what a year and how fast it has flown by! Teak turned a year old last Friday, Oct 28th. Can't believe that he is such a big boy now...we are entering into toddler years and we are feeling it. He has been walking for a couple weeks now and everyday he gets better. A year ago, we had no idea what the Lord had planned but He is good and we are so blessed yet so undeserving!

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Smiling away, playing in his Original 1st Birthday shirt!

It was a beautiful fall day, perfect for a birthday party in the park. We had Thundercloud subs, fruit and cupcakes along with great family and friends. Our neighborhood, Brentwood, has a great park with a shaded playground area. We found a nice shaded picnic area to set up and still have a view of the ongoings.

Our son, with Spina Bifida Myelomeningocele does not have a shunt, doesn't need to be cathed and is walking! He, like every other SB kid out there, is going to do great things in this world. The people of the SB world are so giving and caring. They really want to share their experiences and hear your own experiences.

We are so excited for the next year of Teak's life and getting to know our beautiful blessing even better.

Picture of friends hanging out under the Happy Birthday sign I made for my little boy!

Teak walking, walking, walking!

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Teak hanging out on the ground with one of his future girlfriends, Georgia Ramsey

Teak has started WALKING! He started walking while holding our hands and also while pushing a push walker toy when he was around 10 months, maybe a little before. He always loved standing, I have said that time and again. Then he started traveling a little after crawling. But the issue was that we were told time and again by our personal PT (physical therapist) as well as the PT at the SB clinic that we shouldn't encourage standing because we wanted to encourage crawling. Well, this was in the back of our heads all the time so once he started crawling then we were still hesitant to "allow" him to stand...I know sounds silly but when you have a SB kid who seems to not really have any residual effects of the fact that his spinal chord and nerves were once outside of his body in a lesion then you get a little weirded out in the fact that your child is progressing "normally" in his physical development.

I know, I know...we should just shut up and let the good Lord show his ways in our son and we are very positive people, well, at least when it comes to our son from day one of finding out about his SB but it is just hard to face reality rather good or bad sometimes. With that being said, he just loved to push that push toy around our little 800 sqft house. One day our PT was here and showed him how to walk backward, backing the toy up out of a corner in order to keep going and then the next day he was doing it all by himself! We have friends that said their kids didn't learn how to do that backing up with a push toy until they were way over 2 and already walking on their own.

So, the time goes by and it is about 3 weeks before he is going to turn 1 and Chad just got home from work and I am sitting on the floor with Teak, where I usually am all day, and Teak is standing at our little round table, holding on when I coax him to walk toward me. Chad turns around and voila, Teak took 3 independent steps then fell into my arms. It was so amazing! I started crying just out of pure joy, Chad saw it and came running over as we all embraced. It was a great family moment for the movies! Poor Teak got a little scared though because he didn't want to do it again. I think he thought it was bad because I was crying!

Then about 2 weeks before he turned 1, we were at our friend's house, the Welches, and we kept pushing him to walk on his own...he took a few more independent steps maybe 5 or so together then fell or grabbed onto something. Then we went to our friends, the Ramseys, the next day and Chad became a soccer dad...he was just pushing Teak outside in their lush green lawn to walk from him to me constantly. Teak was getting up to about 19 steps from start to finish. It was pretty exciting. After that it was just encouraging walking where ever we were. There was still a lot of crawling going which is great because that is sooooo good for development, physically and mentally, so that was all good.

Our PT said that she didn't see anything abnormal with his walking. He definitely started out walking like a German soldier but that went down after time. He doesn't seem to drag either leg even though his right leg is still a bit stiffer then the left. Time will only tell but we will continue to do stretch out those muscles and encourage walking.